Step 2: Take one of the Lids

Step 3: How to use your new box

When the cat has eliminated a few times in thier new box. Seperate the two boxes and place the lid with holes on the box with the dirty litter. Now fl...

So last year I got a dog. I already had a cat and couldn't keep the dog out of the litter box. So I came up with the idea to use an 18 gal storage tub. It works really well. The tall sides keep the dog out and its nice and roomie for the cat! Well tonight I came up with an even better idea. Why not make it a self sifter too. Here is what I came up with....

Step 1: First things first..

You need two totes that are the SAME. Get a drill, and a drill bit - I used a 3/8 bit. And a razor knife. I couldn't find my knife so I just used the blade.

Step 2: Take one of the Lids

I may or may not use the second lid in this project on a later date I'm fiddleing with another idea to expand upond the greatness of this idea. So for now take one of the lids and place it on a tote. Drill lots of holes in the lid you can measure them out or just do some random holes I did both. Having the lid on the tote really helps.

Next take the razor and clean up the holes.

You are pretty much done at this point. Stack the two totes and go ahead and fill'er up with your favorite clumping cat litter.

Step 3: How to use your new box

When the cat has eliminated a few times in thier new box. Seperate the two boxes and place the lid with holes on the box with the dirty litter. Now flip this box on top of the empty box and shake untill the unused litter is in the bottom tote.

You may need to do this side a few times till you get the hang of it. It can still be a little messy!

One possibility would be to secure the two lids together, top-to-top, with rivets, epoxy, or silicone adhesive. Once they're firmly attached, drill the filter holes through both of them. Now you'd get positive linkage to both bins with no chance of slippage. There is still a downside where some of the litter escapes the sides of the holes into the gap between the lids. The (ugly) solution I see for this is to actually put a layer of epoxy or silicone across the whole surface, do a complete seal, and drill out once its cured. You can't do this with a solvent-based adhesive, since there's nowhere for the solvent to evaporate.

Love this! One of my faves and I don't even have a cat yet! I just thought of a suggestion to help the messiness! What if you just cut the sifter holes in the bottom of one of the tubs and stacked it inside the other one without the holes? Then fill it with the litter and let the cat use it. When you need to clean it, just raise the 'holy' one out with the cat 'mess' in it and dump it. Then push the 'holy' tub back down into the litter in the other tub. Then just keep using it that way until it's time to change it again. Hope that helps! Very good idea you have here!

You need three tubs. One with holes. You can not push it back down but can sift and dump the poos, put the sifter in the clean tub and pour the remaining litter into the sifter in the clean box. Hard to discribe but they sell small boxes that do this if you look around. These hold about 25 to 40 lbs of litter though so not so easy to pick up and hold while they are sifting....

Greetings from the Great Lake State: One question. I am a little confused. Where is the Cat entering? What I see is 2 18 Gallon containers on top of each other. In the description it does not say any thing about how the cat enters.

The box is left open and the cat hops in from the top. Not good for old or disabled cats but most cats are fine. If you cut a hole they can fling litter out like my Munchie cat does. Now he can fling all he wants with no problem :)

To clean you put the top with the holes on the tote. Put the other empty box on top of that, open side down. Try to flip the boxes over so the one with the sand is on top and sifts into the now bottom empty tote.

I have a buuuunch of bins left over from moving. This indestructable got me to thinking... my big cat makes a huuuuuge mess throwing litter everywhere and I had to give up my enclosed litter box because he cornered my little older cat in there once so she wouldn't use it any more...sooooo, why not make a really big cat box with one of the bins - cutting a U shaped opening on one side and just leave the top off for my scaredy cat. Thanks for the inspiration. I'll deal with the sifting problem later.

I like the idea, but I went a different rout. would be awesome to see someone build one of their own, but I ended up getting a Litter Robot. www.litter-robot.com It works wonders, I have to mess with it once a week, and that is to pull a little plastic bag out, and put a new one in, top of the litter, and it's good for another week. no more scooping or anything. plus we use at least 1/4 of the amount of litter we use to use with a conventional litter box. Good instructable though. other than pictures being crooked.

I had something like this I bought from the store, just easier. There was 2 litter pans, and a screen pan. The screen was under the litter, when the cat was done, you lift the screen out, sifting the litter from the leftovers. Garbage the leftovers, put the screen in the second litter pan, pour the clean litter in the second pan. $15 at the pet store.

Pssst. Clumping cat litter is the biggest time sink ever created. Stop panning for gold and try regular, generic, clay litter. The cheaper it is the better. You want a bag of very small grains of clay and clay dust. I have 3 cats. With clumping litter, go over 24 hours between cleaning and the litterbox is a solid block of concrete. If regular maintenance is performed, it works well, but uses up a lot of litter, time, and money. With the namebrand fancy grade clay litter (large pebbles of scented litter): 10-12 pounds fit in the litter box and last 3-4 days before the thing reeks of cat pee. Dump the stuff out, and there's quite a bit of very wet and stinky litter stuck on the bottom of the box. The smell is incredibly awful. Cheap clay litter, 17 cents a pound (tiny grains of plain clay): huge improvement. 15-18 pounds fit in the litterbox. Goes an entire week. No odor. No cat poo in sight. When poured out, the bottom is still dry. There's just room for scads of scats in there. Awesome! When I first switched to this stuff, it was hard to believe. I had to search the house to make sure they weren't going somewhere else. Lesson learned. It's amazing how commercial packaging/advertising can make you buy an inferior product at a higher cost by falsely promising the very things it fails to do. When it fails, miserably, you may automatically assume that the other stuff must be even worse.